


Build Trust

by triarii



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Ace Surives, Drift Compatibility, Kink Meme, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triarii/pseuds/triarii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kink meme: Max and Furiosa are drift compatible, Ace is jealous</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build Trust

In the scavenge runs after the fall of the Immortan, survivors were brought back with the scrap. The orders from the Imperator Furiosa and the Four Sisters were that none should be killed, despite being traitors to the new regime.

Out of the wreckage in the pass, behind the twisted smoking wreck of the war rig, there weren’t many survivors for it to be a difficult choice. One or two Imperators, full-lifers whose bodies could weather a crash. A handful of half-lifers who got lucky, more or less. Coma, the Doof Warrior, still clutching his monstrous guitar in a nest of twisted speakers and sparking lights. And the Ace, oldest of the war boys, the one they used to say that Valhalla had turned away.

One of his legs was crushed beyond recognition, pinned just above the knee under a pile of twisted scrap. When the scavenge runners pulled him from the wreck, he held his hands up in surrender before they could train guns on him, his face all tired resignation.

The other survivors were brought back with wary guard, unwilling or unable to believe that Immortan Joe had fallen, that their god was dead and Valhalla was a shattered dream. The Ace rode shotgun on the lead scavenge truck, his jaw set against the pain but his face stony and silent. The war boy driving would later tell Furiosa that he thought he saw him praying.

She was waiting as the lifts came up. As the survivors were brought in, she stared through them, the stony gaze of a leader who would not meet the eyes of the disloyal. He limped forward, supported by a war boy on the side of his shattered leg, and their eyes met. She closed the distance between them, and they stared, sizing each other up.

He had been riding with her since, nearly, her first battle, back when her white paint was fresh and she had two good strong arms. They had shared a bunk, a rig, each others’ respect. He thought he knew her like breathing.

He opened his mouth to speak when behind her, like an apparition, came the bloodbag. It was only when it placed a hand on Furiosa’s shoulder that the Ace realized how tense she had been. She looked back at the bloodbag, just a glance, and it grunted low in its throat like a feral. She nodded, and turned away.

Ace stood, watching her walk away. Eventually, as blood soaked through the tatters of his trouser leg, the war boys brought him to the chop shop to try to fix his mangled leg.

-

Ace lost the leg. He didn’t feel too sentimental about it; he was surprised it took him so long to lose a limb, at this age. It was amputated at the knee, a cleaner job than he’d expected, dosed up with something made with poppies and willow bark to help the pain. When the Organic Mechanic had run the chop shop, surgeries were done wide awake, nothing but a belt in your mouth and a crowd of war boys to hold you down; this gentler form of medicine feels like it can’t work half as well. But his leg healed up well enough, and soon enough he was able to get around on crutches made from welded steel and old upholstery.

The next time he saw Furiosa, it was in his temporary quarters; in his state, it was too hard to get around the war boys’ barracks, and he hadn’t yet allowed himself to consider that he wouldn’t be bunking with his crew anymore.

She arrived unannounced, only the hush of war boys in awe preceding her. She had a new arm, he noticed; it wasn’t much different, aside from some irreplaceable parts, but he wondered what happened to the old one.

A silence he didn’t recognize stretched between them. Neither of them were much for conversation, even on their best days, but it had never been like this. Back then, if they were silent, it was because they already knew what the other was thinking--at least, he’d thought they did. His hands twitched on his crutches, the only betrayal of his nerves, and when her gaze landed on them he knew they both were remembering those hands closing around her throat.

“A lot of the war boys had a crisis of faith after they saw Joe dead,” she said. “I’d understand if you did too.”

“In the end, he was just a man,” Ace said. “Never expected him to be much else.”

The silence stretches on.

“You, though,” Ace said. “You weren’t ever a man.”

She laughed, a humorless bark.

“What ye did was stupid,” he said. “Traitoring him like that. Going rogue with no plan an’ no backup. You got a good crew killed.”

“It was then or never,” she said. “It wasn’t just about me. I had to act fast, and make some sacrifices.”

“An’ I was one of them,” he replied. It was part question; he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer.

She sighed, and he could hear pain in it. “I didn’t want you to be. But I couldn’t risk it.”

“If you’d’ve told me--”

“You might have traitored me.”

“For traitoring the Immortan. For asking to get killed.” There was venom in his voice that he wished wasn’t there.

“I would have been asking you to die an honorless death.” Her face was hard, but there might have been remorse in it. “Worse than dying quiet.”

He sighed. “I don’t know if I would’ve taken it.”

She nodded. “I know.” There was no betrayal in her voice; he thought he even heard respect.

They sat for a while, the silence between them less foreign. Eventually, she spoke again.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said, and it sounded like an apology. “I had my leg in a bear trap. It was chew it off or bleed out.”

“Not the first time,” he said. “For either of us, now.” There was almost some humor in it, he thought.

She laughed quietly, shaking her head. “Guess that’s where we’re different.”

“You’d saw your arm off, every time,” he said. He remembered the day she did it, how she’d hacked it off after getting pinned in a wreck ready to explode. He remembered lying under his own wreck, waiting for death or scavenge, whichever came first.

She nodded. “You were always better at waiting than me.”

“Comes with age,” he said, grinning ruefully. It’s an old joke of theirs. Her mouth quirked up, but she didn’t finish the joke. She was supposed to say that he’s barely older than her, which is true; half-lifers show their age faster, and she aged well for fourteen thousand days.

“I’m sorry about your leg,” she said instead.

He shrugged. “Happens.”

She nearly grinned. “Don’t I know it.”

It was his turn to bark a laugh. They sat, the silence nearly comfortable now. After a while, she stood.

“Almost forgot.” She left for a moment, coming back with something wrapped in rough fabric. “Brought you something.” She unrolled it, revealing a rough metal leg, bulky and utilitarian.

“Organic’s gone,” he said in wonder. “How’d you build this?”

“Max helped,” she said. “And a few of the better revheads.”

“Max?”

“He was with me when you arrived.” She was getting guarded, as if she was self-conscious.

He stared at her. “The bloodbag?”

She nodded. “His name is Max. He helped take the Citadel,” she said. He looked for any accusation in her tone, but there was none. “He comes and goes.”

“He your man?” Ace asked bluntly.

“Not like that,” she said.

Ace nodded. He strapped on the leg, testing his weight on it. It would take some getting used to, but it would work.

-

Joe’s breeders called themselves the Sisters after the fall. Furiosa, Ace learned, was technically in command, but they ran the Citadel. Furiosa was the muscle; their general, their enforcer, the raw power behind their gentler minds.

The Citadel, too, was changing. People called it Watertown now, sometimes The Green Place, and the war boys weren’t raiding anymore. Instead, they were tending seeds, the gardens a place of glory now instead of a lowly position for half-lifers too weak to fight.

Ace was getting the hang of the new leg. Soon, he could abandon the crutches and limp around the halls, though they felt empty without his old crew. Repair work was a good distraction; that, and prayer. Immortan Joe was gone, but he’d never been much of Ace’s god; it was the machinery that Ace respected, horsepower and torque and chrome.

Furiosa offered him his own quarters, but once he was able, he preferred to sleep in the barracks. War boys usually piled two to three in a bunk, never having quite enough space to sleep alone, but he was given a wide berth. Losing your crew was like losing a limb, and Ace had lost both.

Sleeping alone was difficult. He was used to Furiosa at his side, the way their spines would line up as they slept back to back, how they’d sprawl across each other on hot nights to fight for a breeze, how she’d wait while he rode out night fevers, the rest of his crew in the bunks above and below, the sound of their breathing familiar and safe. A bunk to himself felt too large, too empty. Many nights, sleep wouldn’t come.

To make matters worse, Furiosa still slept in the barracks. She and the bloodbag would curl into each other like puppies, foreheads touching and arms entwined. Seeing their closeness just made the distance between her and Ace feel bigger, vast and empty as the wasteland. He remembered being silent with her, but the bloodbag, he thinks, must be full feral. He’d never heard them speak.

He would have understood if Furiosa took a man, even though he’d thought she preferred wives; the bloodbag was strong, and not ugly. But they never disappeared together like couples do, and he never saw an unchaste touch. After Furiosa’s visit with him, Ace never even saw them apart.

-

The bloodbag came and went, disappearing for long stretches before returning as if he’d never gone. Whenever he left, the distance between Ace and Furiosa would slowly work on closing. They were starting to trust each other again, re-learning each other. He noticed that she seemed just as contrite as he knew he should be; he had been the one with his hands around her throat, but she acted like she had traitored him just as badly.

After night mess, they would sit in the workshops, working on a new rig or, less often, on their prosthetics. Furiosa’s new arm was heavier and less precise as her old one, with only three thick fingers that couldn’t grasp as finely. Ace’s leg still gave him a limp, and he was working on fixing it, though he knew part of the problem was probably just his age. Sometimes, on these nights, they would talk, but mostly they just worked, passing each other tools without needing to ask.

Ace would avoid her when the bloodbag came back. It felt too much like intruding, like he was walking in on a private conversation; it was worst when he’d catch her greeting the bloodbag on its return. They would touch their foreheads together, eyes closed, breathing syncing up, blind to the world around them; in that moment, they were each others’ worlds. Occasionally he’d sit with them at mess, but the bloodbag unnerved him; it looked at the world with an unhinged wariness, like a dog that might bite. Ace didn’t want to be alone with it.

One day, it happened, though. At morning mess, Furiosa sent the bloodbag up to get her a tray, one of the bolts in her arm having just come loose. Ace offered to help, but she unstrapped her arm and waved him off with it. He ended up next to the bloodbag in line, tense with unease to be so close to something so feral. He’d seen plenty of wasteland crazies before; they always snapped when they were mutes.

Mess never had much variety, mostly just beans and greens, but there was usually enough to form preferences. The feral paused before the bowls of root mash, and Ace grunted, “She don’t like that,” before he could stop himself.

“I know,” the bloodbag said.

Ace tried to hide his shock. It didn’t work. “You can talk,” he blurted out.

The bloodbag shrugged.

“Thought you were a feral,” Ace said bluntly.

The bloodbag cracked a smile. “Prob’ly,” he said.

“Max, isn’t it,” Ace said. The bloodbag looked surprised. He probably didn’t give his name out much. Ace jabbed a thumb towards himself. “‘M the Ace. Used to be Furiosa’s second-in-command, before.” He let that information sit, returning to his seat.

\--

Time passed. Ace was starting to get used to Max’s presence; he rode shotgun on the war rig during supply runs, watching warily whenever Ace leaned on Furiosa’s windowsill for reports or a chat. Ace still kept his distance otherwise. The new rig crew started to bunk together, but he still slept alone. His stomach still turned with some strange feeling whenever he caught sight of Furiosa and Max in the bunks nearby, especially when he was lying awake at night. There was something between them that he won’t ever know, he knew. But he still felt the loss of her, and his body kept searching for hers half-asleep in the dark.

The next time Max went off on one of his wasteland jaunts, Ace brought it up in the workshop.

“He really ain’t your man?” he asked.

“Who,” Furiosa asked, as if there could be anyone else. “Max?”

“Yeah.” He passed her a screwdriver. She took it, tightening one of her arm’s elbow joints.

She gave him an appraising look. “I’m barren, Ace.”

“You know that ain’t what I mean,” he scoffed. “War boys don’t breed, an’ plenty of them’ve got men.”

“He’s not,” she said. “It’s different.”

Ace shrugged. She handed him a spanner.

“You’re jealous,” she said, almost in wonder.

He stared at her, taken aback.

She shrugged, turning back to her arm.

“‘M not,” he said. Considering it, he continued. “Not really.”

She grunted in disbelief.

He was quiet for a few long moments, until everything inside him bubbled over. “I’ve been fighting at your side since your paint was fresh and they still called you a boy,” he spat. “And I lost my whole crew-- _we_ lost _our_ crew. Now I know you didn’t have no loyalty to this place, but they were _our_ boys. But now... well, you’ve got your bloodbag, and I bunk alone.”

He strapped his leg back on, standing a little too quickly. He stumbled, but straightened. His back was straight as he limped out of the room, not looking back. He told himself that he wasn’t hurting, and it nearly worked.

\--

Furiosa gave him a wide berth after that. It was a tense few weeks until Max returned. Ace caught him coming up the lift, covered in dust from the wasteland, the brace on his leg squealing with sand stuck in the gears. Furiosa was in a meeting with the Sisters and the new Bullet Farmer, negotiating new trade deals; she couldn’t come receive him.

Max looked a bit lost without her, he noticed. His eyes were far away, flicking rapidly back and forth. Ace nearly left him standing there, then huffed in what he supposed was sympathy and limped over.

“Bullet Farmer’s here,” he said. Max seemed to snap back to the present, his gaze almost level as he studiously didn’t meet Ace’s eyes. “Bullet Farmer’s here,” Ace repeated. “She’s meeting with 'em.”

Max nodded slowly, taking it in. Ace realized he’d never actually seen Max alone in the Citadel; Furiosa would leave his orbit on occasion, but he’d never leave hers.

Ace sighed in resignation. “Come on, then. Let’s get you fed.”

Max followed him warily, but he followed.

The mess hall was nearly empty when they arrived. Max, Ace noticed, wasn’t picky; he barely looked at the food he took, just seemed to be glad that it was there. His rough hands were gentle with the chipped bowls. Without Furiosa, Max was wary, more like a trapped animal than anything else. Ace sat down, and instantly regretted it--why was he babysitting Furiosa’s feral? The air was tense between them, and he realized he didn’t know much about Max at all.

Max finished eating. He sat, awkwardly turning a cup of water in his hands. He seemed to be trying to find words. Ace waited.

“M’sorry,” Max said.

Ace cocked his head, confused. “What?”

“Sorry,” Max said again. “You, and Furiosa… you were. Close.”

"We're not exactly far, even now." Ace said warily.

“Things are different now,” Max replied.

Ace shrugged. “Ain’t my business what you do."

“I…” he stumbled, looking for words. “Feels like I took her away. From you.”

“She’s her own person, mate,” Ace sighed. “She goes where she wants.”

Max nodded. He was quiet for a while, then finally met Ace’s eyes. “I, uh. I want to... to trust you like she does.”

Ace was shocked at his frankness. For once, he was the one at a loss for words; too many unsaid things and petty resentments flashed through his head before he responded. When he said, “Feeling’s mutual, mate,” he realized that, shockingly, he really meant it. He really wanted to trust this half-feral bloodbag, wanted to so badly he could taste it.

Max gave a grunt of satisfaction, standing with some effort as his knee protested. An idea struck, and Ace made himself speak before he could talk himself out of it.

“I can take a look at that brace for you,” he offered.

Max turned, looking surprised. Ace gave him credit for quickly recognizing a peace offering when he nodded. “Yeah? Uh. That’d be alright of you.”

They must’ve made a hell of a pair, Ace thought, both of them limping into the workshop. Max’s brace mostly just needed cleaning and oiling, and a few minor adjustments on the screws.

Furiosa found them in there hours later, Max’s brace long since finished, Ace idly working on his leg. Their conversation had started at braces and prosthetics, then moved on to cars, until, finally, it ended up on her.

“--still a war boy then, they used to call her _he_. ‘S how the war boys do, everyone’s the same ‘til they make Imperator. She rode like a dream, I couldn’t believe it. I thought she’d eat dirt; ‘stead, we came out of the battle with honors.”

Ace paused, noticing Max looking up. Furiosa was standing in the doorway, watching them.

Ace scowled at her, but there was no venom in it. “How long’ve you been standing there, huh boss? Here I am tellin’ war stories about you an’ you can hear the whole damn thing.”

She barked out a laugh, leaning against the door frame. “Which one was that? You never told me I rode like a dream before.”

“First one we fought together,” Ace found himself grinning. “When you nearly made me deaf from that damn rifle.”

Max laughed at that, dry and raspy. They turned, looking at him, and he motioned to his own ear, his words coming more freely now. “Did that to me, too. Out in the swamps.”

“Ain’t gonna rest ‘til your whole crew’s deaf in one ear, will you?” Ace teased. “Better hope nobody tries to get the jump on our right sides, we’ll never hear ‘em coming.”

She snorted, and Ace noticed she was more relaxed than he’d seen her in a long time. “You just been talking about me this whole time?”

“On n’ off,” Ace shrugged. “Max here told me you pulled off some shine stunts on the old rig.”

The air in the room turned solemn at the mention of the road war, but not uncomfortably so. “Couldn’t have done it without him,” she said. Furiosa’s gaze turned nearly soft when she looked at Max, and Ace decided he was glad. He wouldn’t want her looking at him like that, he realized. It wouldn’t be right.

He turned away politely when Furiosa crossed the room, and Max stood to greet her belatedly, their foreheads pressing together. There wasn’t any bitterness left in him; he’d come to accept that it was just their way, and they might as well have privacy for it. He looked up when Furiosa nudged his shoulder, passing him the screwdriver he hadn’t realized he needed. A warmth rose in him; deep down, they still knew each other’s movements like breathing.

Ace’s bones still ached alone in his bunk that night, but the loneliness was easier to shake off. He was nearly asleep when Max padded over, still in his thick jacket--he always slept in his clothes the first few nights, as if something would jump him in the middle of the night.

Ace sat up on one elbow, looking over the edge of the bunk. “Need something, mate?”

“She, uh. She doesn’t sleep too good sometimes,” Max said, motioning vaguely. “I think she’s… too proud t’ask.”

Ace waited, not about to assume what Max was asking.

Max sighed, then jerked his head towards Furiosa’s bunk. “Come to bed, mate. S’late.”

Furiosa’s spine still aligned perfectly against his as they slept back to back. At some point in the night Max’s legs got all tangled up in his. Around them, their crew snored and talked in their sleep and the pipes of Watertown clanked and rattled. Three in a bunk was always tight, but Ace hadn’t slept so well even before Immortan Joe fell. 

**Author's Note:**

> did you know I'm a sucker for platonic relationships because I fucking am  
> homestuck changes you, man. it's all moirail shipping and weeping over face touches now


End file.
